Mountain Living

March 1, 2011

In La Tajeada, I’m never really alone.

I took me several months to fully realize it, but I’m always surrounded by people. Even though I live with a relatively small host family (mom, brother, and sister), my family is more like 15 people.

Our house is within spitting distance of two aunts, two uncles, two grandparents, and four cousins. It’s within shouting distance of four more aunts and uncles, two comadres, and a pack of cousins. Add in friends, neighbors, aunts, uncles, and cousins who come to visit on the weekend, and the pigs, sheep, dogs, chickens, cows, and ducks and things start getting really big.

In some ways, we live communally. Often dinners are cooked together at our grandparent’s house. Each family will bring vegetables, rice, and a chicken and the moms and daughters will help out chopping, cooking, and stirring the gigantic pot of food.

Children do their homework together at a large table outside. Older cousins work the fields for their grandfather and do favors for their aunts in exchange for coffee, cookies, soda, and lunch. Tools like ladders, shovels, pickaxes, and horses are shared amongst family. There is no need for each family to own a saw when they can share.

Each afternoon around 3:00 or 4:00 we lock the house and head up to our grandparent’s house to hang out. We chit-chat, play cards, listen to music, and play fútbol until it gets dark. Friends and family from all over the barrio come by to pasear. It’s not unusual to see 10 or 15 people at their house at night.

As a person who loves being with her family, it’s a pleasure to live as we do. I love the sense of connectedness and warmth that exists. I think about what it would be like to have my U.S. family living the same way. Grandma and grandpa next door, all of our aunts and uncles across the street, cousins playing together every day, everyone sharing food and talking.

However, I think that it would look much different once you factor in cars, 9-5 jobs, college, computers, winter, and American independence. Especially, American independence.

I’m a sociable person in the United States but in La Tajeada I’m more introverted than everyone. My Honduran family thinks alone time is unusual. They don’t understand my desire to watch movies in English on my computer or to read in the hammock on sunny afternoons. In Minneapolis I loved to explore the city alone. I liked wandering into shops, going to museums, and walking by the river. Those activities just aren’t possible here.

It’s a give and take, just like everything in life. There is no perfect but I try to keep focused on the parts that make me happy.